Getting Started with UE

Building a mixed-reality experience with stereo pass-through and real-time depth interaction is complex and technically challenging. To ensure developers create stunning MR applications with UE4, we’re sharing an optimized Unreal Engine for AR/MR along with the ZED plugin for Unreal.

This custom modification of the Unreal Engine has been developed with the specific constraints of mixed reality in mind. It allows us to add several key technologies necessary to create believable and interactive AR/MR experiences:

Interactive collisions: Virtual elements such as lasers or balls can collide with both static and dynamic objects in the real-world without having to scan the environment first.

Realistic shadows and lighting: Real-time depth and normal maps have been integrated in the rendering pipeline to offer a photorealistic integration of virtual content in the real-world. Virtual objects can cast shadows and project light on both static and dynamic real-world objects.

Depth occlusions: Occlusion of a virtual object by the real environment is required in order to trick human eyes into believing the virtual object is really present in the scene. By integrating long range depth sensing into UE4, virtual objects are naturally occluded by the surrounding environment.

Download the ZED SDK

The ZED SDK contains the core libraries that powers the ZED. It also contains tools to let you experiment its features and parameters.
* Download and install it from here.